With the holiday season just around the corner, it’s that time of year again: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In ecommerce, this is the final stretch everything builds toward since, for many brands, what happens over these few days decides how the whole quarter looks. If you are on the hook for growth, retention, or marketing, you probably feel uneasy in your stomach already. But how do you pull a real BFCM revenue lift without wrecking your margins or turning your brand into “just another discount”? That is what we are going to dig into here.
Keep in mind prices have been climbing for months on basics like food, fuel, and rent, so your customers are coming into this season with their guard up. They are now more reluctant than ever to click the “buy now” button and more selective in deciding what actually makes it into the cart. That kind of caution changes everything for you. It affects what sells, how fast stock moves, and how much trust you build or burn with every single order.
That is where Omnisend’s latest BFCM 2025 spending research comes in. It gives you more than headline stats. It opens a window into how your customers actually shop, where they hold back, and what finally nudges them to commit to the purchase.
This is How Omnisend’s BFCM 2025 Survey Can Maximize Your Benefits
Omnisend runs an all in one marketing platform that brings email, SMS, and web push together for more than 150,000 online businesses worldwide. This allows them to see a huge volume of real campaign performance and customer behaviour every single day. Instead of sitting on that data, their team runs structured surveys and turns those findings into strategic insights that brands can use to plan, budget, and grow more confidently.
To plan a successful campaign, you can use Omnisend’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday predictions for this 2025. This research gathers data from August 2025, surveying 4,000 consumers across four key markets: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. The goal was to find out how people really plan to approach BFCM this year. The survey looked at how much they expect to spend, the types of products they plan to buy, how they prefer to pay or even where they plan to shop.
It also includes a helpful comparison to their behavior in 2024. This way you can see not just what they will do this year, but how their habits are shifting over time.
What Shoppers Plan to Spend by Country During BFCM 2025
Omnisend’s projections point to higher BFCM spend in all four markets.
- United States: About 80 billion dollars, up roughly 20 billion year on year.
- United Kingdom: About 13.9 billion pounds, up about 4.1 billion.
- Canada: About 9.3 billion dollars, up around 1.7 billion.
- Australia: About 6.1 billion dollars, up about 1 billion.
Surprisingly, even with inflation and maybe some lingering debt on their minds, shoppers are actually planning to spend more during BFCM 2025 than they did last year. This period has firmly become a high-intent window where a big slice of annual ecommerce revenue now lands. A key reason? Many consumers are pulling Christmas spending forward into BFCM to take advantage of its discounts and keep their overall holiday costs down.
Average budgets per shopper rise as well, which helps with forecasting and offer design.
- United States: Around 340 dollars on Black Friday and 300 dollars on Cyber Monday, both up strongly versus last year.
- United Kingdom: About 299 pounds on Black Friday and 228 pounds on Cyber Monday.
- Canada: About 319 dollars on Black Friday and 242 dollars on Cyber Monday.
- Australia: About 332 dollars on Black Friday and 240 dollars on Cyber Monday.
The core signal is simple. Even with inflation and debt concerns, shoppers plan to spend more during BFCM than last year. BFCM remains a high intent window where a large share of annual ecommerce revenue is at stake.
Benchmark your BFCM revenue plan against these averages and increases. If you sell in a market that lags the list above, aim to close the gap with better targeting, stronger owned channel execution, and clear value in delivery and returns.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday: From Shopping Spree to a Budgeting Tool
Omnisend’s research points to an actual change in how people think about BFCM. Instead of treating it as a blowout weekend, many shoppers now see it as their chance to buy Christmas gifts early while prices are still low. This way they are not stung by higher costs later in the season. For a lot of households, it is about easing pressure on the budget, not chasing extra indulgence.
Why this change of mind in customer behavior?
- The prices for everyday items are very high.
- Some of the shoppers still are in debt from last year’s holiday season.
- Many customers feel exposed to unexpected bills and want to avoid paying full price in December.
You likely serve customers in scenarios like these. A parent buys all children’s gifts during BFCM to avoid using credit in December. A young professional replaces a laptop during BFCM because they cannot justify full price in January. A good choice for your business would be to build a BFCM strategy around being smart with savings and carefully design your offers to appeal, not just loud percentage banners.
As a whole: Make it easy for shoppers to feel they are making a financially sound decision.
What People Will Buy During BFCM 2025
Not all countries tackle Black Friday and Cyber Monday the same way. For example, in the US, shoppers lean harder into tech, from new phones to gaming gear. In the UK they aim for beauty products and things to improve their weekly shopping, with skincare and groceries taking a bigger slice of the budget. Across every market, toys keep showing up at the top of the list, as families plan ahead their Christmas presents to make sure Santa will make their child smile.
Here are the main categories shoppers say they will focus their budgets on this year:
- Clothing and apparel leads in every market.
- Tech and electronics are the second pillar, especially strong in the US and UK.
- Toys are the fastest growing category as parents spread out gifting costs.
- Beauty, home decor, and food matter as secondary categories, with higher interest in beauty and food in the UK.
So for apparel, you could promote capsule outfits and bundles that reduce returns and raise cart size. For electronics, perhaps use accessory upsells. For toys, try to build age-based gift guides that encourage multi-item baskets.
Want to be right on the money? We recommend using Omnisend’s platform and its segmentation and automation tools to more effectively target these categories to drive those types of campaigns.
Where Will People Shop And How To Protect Your Direct Channel
As the world’s most powerful and known brand in eCommerce, Amazon remains the default BFCM destination in all four markets. However, additionally, value driven marketplaces like Temu and Shein are rising fast, especially in Australia and Canada. Social commerce, such as TikTok Shop, is gaining share with younger buyers.
These popular platforms will pull buyers away from your site, so your response starts on your owned ground. Make value obvious on your site with competitive pricing, clear delivery terms, fair returns, and helpful support.
To attract customers, it’s a good idea to use platforms like Omnisend to leverage your email, SMS, and web pushes to keep past customers from drifting to marketplaces when BFCM starts. This will strengthen your owned channels so you reach people before those other marketplace tabs are opened in their browsers.
How Shoppers Pay And What That Means For Your Business
The 4,000 respondents of this survey gave clear intent on how they plan to shop this year.
Consumer Motivators for Retailer Selection
- Discounts: They are the most important factor. Discounts continue to be the most important factor, with up to about 70% of respondents indicating they are crucial.
- Free Shipping: This is the second most important motivator, influencing up to about 59% of responses.
- Other mentions went to loyalty programs, early access deals, and influencer campaigns, which have less impact..
What does this really mean for you? Push discounts a bit harder and your margins vanish. Set free shipping too low and small orders start eating into profit. Keep firing out promo after promo and your list gets tired, tunes you out, and stops opening.
If you want to make profit and still grab attention, you might have to step away from your usual comfort zone. Instead of throwing out one big blanket discount on everything, try encouraging spending in a smart way. For example, you could set up tiered offers that unlock better savings as the cart grows. Also, adding a free-shipping threshold can be the clincher that customers need to make that purchase.
To really drive your campaigns you can grant even stronger deals to engaged or high value segments, not everyone. These tactics only work when you can segment and automate them well, which is where a platform like Omnisend helps.
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL)
Buy now, pay later lets customers split a purchase into different payments at checkout. In Omnisend’s data, around 14 to 21 percent of shoppers across the four markets plan to use BNPL during BFCM 2025. Using this payment method is especially popular for items like electronics and premium fashion.
BNLP has both good and bad things. The good is that it can push conversion up and nudge average order values higher, especially when you are selling big ticket items. However, it can also bring extra processing fees, make refunds harder, and there’s always the risk customers will get into debt.
So expect both types of behaviour. One shopper opts for BNPL on a premium laptop so there is still room in the budget for the rest of their gift list. Another ignores it completely, since they are still carrying the debt from another buy now pay later deal.
Our recommendation is offering BNPL, but not making it into a pivotal part of your Black Friday or Cyber Monday strategy. Simply highlight it for higher price tiers or bundles through segmentation.
BFCM 2025 Strategies and the Path Towards Long Term Growth
Four points stand out from Omnisend’s research. Shoppers plan to spend more overall on BFCM 2025, yet they will do it in a careful way. Clothing, tech, and toys dominate demand, and marketplaces will compete hard for those sales. Discounts and free shipping still drive decisions, while simple payment options such as BNPL help higher priced baskets. Brands must protect margin with tiers, thresholds, and smart targeting.
Time and budget are tight, and you only get one Black Friday and Cyber Monday window. Take the next steps now. Review your data and segment your list. Turn on core automations across email, SMS, and push. Build offers that respect the budgeting mindset. Any tips to get a better outcome? Use a platform like Omnisend to coordinate channels from one place and track impact during the weekend.
